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| The true believers
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The true believers
See expanded drop down menu for this whole section on left
In the 1950s Eric Hoffer wrote a remarkable little book titled The true believer, in which he expressed the opinion that there is a natural process through which the mass of humankind slides into a passive condition of conformity, out of which a hatred for non-conformists is formed. An inquisition would be impossible without a conformist population that, sheep-like, believes the propaganda it is fed. As Orwell noted, warnings about the existence of threatening enemies also help to maintain the conformist state. Those enemies can be evil foreigners, heretics, witches, or paedophiles, or simply non-conformists, those living ‘inappropriate lives’ or, as with today’s climate change sceptics, those with ‘inappropriate beliefs’. In child pornography legislation and its court procedures one senses a strong urge to censor and punish ‘inappropriate thoughts’.
The true believers live in a state of fear: fear of the non-believers, fear of an apocalyptic event, global warming, flu pandemic, economic collapse, asteroid strike, to the extent that they become not citizens of a state but patients of a paternal (Big Brother) authority with its reassuring ‘experts’, its ‘science’ (Malleus Maleficarum) and therapeutic measures.
For examples of this at work, see The dominant narratives.
Created on 05/10/2009 10:47 AM by Editor
Updated on 05/26/2010 07:46 AM by Editor
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